1. Field of the Invention
This invention generally relates to an identity access management system, and more specifically, the invention relates to methods and systems for protecting against identity theft.
2. Background Art
Identity theft has become an important concern. A significant contributing factor is that an individual's social security number and other confidential identifying data are required on many application forms. As a result, individuals may lose control over what is applied for in their names.
Particularly with the growth of the Internet, the opportunity exists for a person to represent himself or herself, improperly and without authorization, as another person. This may be done, for instance, to make purchases, to obtain credit or debit cards, or for other purposes. This misrepresentation may be done by using, for example, a stolen social security number or bank account number or other confidential, personal identifying number.
Procedures are available to address the improper use of credit and debit cards. For example, a pairing of two tokens may be used to identify a card and by extrapolation the card holder. Also, with modern chipcards, the chip may contain an encrypted token and the card holder may supply another token, usually a personal identification number (pin). The combination of these tokens is used by the authorization system to identify the card. It is not possible to say that the proper card holder is using the card, though, because anyone could have the card and the pin. Nonetheless, this procedure, referred to as Authentication, does, to a significant degree, limit the fraud.
While Authentication is thus useful, it does not address the issue of a person attempting to obtain improperly a credit or debit card in the name of another person by using stolen or fraudulently obtained personal identification numbers.